


Unlock It

by squishyjongin



Series: Found you by chance (and I'm not letting go) [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, CEO Sehun, Fluff, M/M, Smut, Soft Kim Jongin | Kai, There Is Sexual Content And It Is Neither Implied Nor Explicit, a lil angst? not a lot tho, ages have been tweaked and sehun is a little bit older than jongin, ish, jongin is also a bit underage, just by a couple months, not what you'd expect from a stripper au, stripper jongin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 12:25:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16219001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squishyjongin/pseuds/squishyjongin
Summary: Sehun has a way to make Jongin feel naked in a way he's never felt before.





	Unlock It

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends!! This is not exactly a sequel; I got a request to see Jongin's perspective of the previous fic in this series, and being the soft ass Jongin stan that I am, I jumped into it head first. I made sure to make this as much of a stand-alone as I could, but if you haven't (and if you're interested) make sure to read the first part, as it gives a lot more context for their situation. Also, please read the tags and warnings, just in case!! And thank you so much for all the love you left in White Noise, it truly means the world to me <3

The lightbulb flickers and Jongin squints at it, sighing. He’s barely replaced it the past week, so something must be up with the connection. He reaches to the pen that lies on the counter and scribbles a quick note on the back of a restaurant pamphlet, hanging it on the fridge held by a magnet before heading, eyes heavy, to the bathroom.

Strands of hair fall before his eyes as he undresses, his motions swift but graceless. There’s no one to impress. The stream of the shower hits sore muscles, and he relaxes into the heat. His eyes closed, he doesn’t see the steam fogging the mirror. He goes through the motions paying little attention to anything but the warmth of the water and the familiar sensation of the foam on his fingertips. He ignores the noise coming from next door, the screaming he’s gotten used to, and the faint sting when his hands go over bite-sized bruises. He’s accustomed to it all.

Jongin blocks the discomfort and focuses on the experience; his eyes open, blinking droplets away, and his sight focuses on the crack on one of the tiles.

He doesn’t rush. He takes the time to pat his skin dry and rub at his hair with a small towel, to wipe the mirror with it haphazardly, and allows himself to look at it for a moment. He doesn’t like how high the bruises are on his neck; they’re hard to hide. He contemplates picking up a turtleneck next time he’s downtown. The shadows under his eyes don’t catch his attention anymore –he’s bound to have them, considering his schedule.

He walks to his closet and clads himself in the softest clothes he can find, the cuff of his sweatpants pooling at his ankles, letting himself fall into his mattress. It’s been a long day.

 

When the morning comes, Jongin hits snooze on his alarm four times before realizing he’s late. He mutters a curse and sprints off of bed, thanking himself for having showered as soon as he got home, changing into casual attire. A few seconds later he’s brushing his teeth; there’s no time for breakfast. He doesn’t think he’s even fully awake as he goes out the door, his coat half on and his backpack in his hand.

He makes it in time. He’s sleepy, no doubt, but he greets customers with a smile and wishes them a nice day ahead. A couple of them recognize him –he can see it in the way their eyebrows cock ever so slightly, and only when their eyes fall to Jongin’s neck does the beginning of a smirk get stuck in their lips. Neither of them says anything. What would they say? Jongin's tone is, for them, stern. It’s not on purpose; he supposes it comes with the character. When they leave, he fixes the hood of his hoodie, pulling it up like a collar, to cover him better. He doesn’t like being looked at like that when he’s not prompting it.

The end of his shift comes eventually, though not quick enough, and Jongin’s stomach grumbles as he exits the store. So he makes a stop to pick up a pizza, and devours half of it as soon as he gets home. The rest goes in the fridge, and when he closes the door he sees the note he left himself the previous night. He pulls up a number on his phone and makes the call; he figures he needs this to be resolved as quick as possible. The electrician agrees to come in the afternoon the next week (Jongin would have preferred it to be sooner, but there’s not much he can do about it) and hangs up. It’s inconvenient, because this means he won’t be able to nap that day, and Jongin relies on his afternoon sleep in order to be able to perform decently at night. But alas.

He crawls into bed and curls up under the blanket, his hands tucked under the pillow and his jeans rubbing uncomfortably against his skin. He passes out before he can think to take them off.

 

Few things can be as terrifying as waking up alone in your apartment knowing that was not how you fell asleep, to find it locked and the keys nowhere to be seen.

The images run through his mind one after the other: he’s fallen asleep, broken his number one rule. In that moment, he remembers why he doesn’t bring anyone home. He remembers the few moments prior, the satiated relaxation sending him into a tranquil state, and a pair of lips peppering his shoulders with kisses, and his eyes closing before he could push him out the door.

And now all that peace was replaced with agitation, a kind of red noise buzzing in his head. He doesn’t know when he left, or why he took his keys. Has he taken anything else? Jongin doesn’t have anything in the first place. Whatever savings he has would be laughable to someone like him. (Still, he checks the tin in the back of his closet- it’s intact.) Nothing seems out of place. Not a drawer open, not a single disturbance in sight. It’s like he never even was there.

But his keys are gone.

He shouldn’t have fallen asleep, God, he shouldn’t have fallen asleep. He swears to himself he’s never going to do this again.

It feels like an eternity. But when he hears the lock on his door and he checks the time on his phone, he realizes he hasn’t been up for more than five minutes. He hasn’t even had time to call the landlord.

Sehun stares at him with what Jongin interprets to be an apologetic look, but Jongin is way too angry to care. He doesn’t even see, at first, the plastic bags the other carries. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!” he all but screams, all tenderness from the previous night long forgotten.

And the man lifts his hands all while staring at him, several bags filled to the brim finally coming to Jongin’s attention. “Groceries,” he says simply. “Your fridge is empty.”

  
Jongin doesn’t know how to react. It’s the last possible answer he would have expected – _I’m actually a secret agent and you’re under arrest_ would have sounded less wrong in his ears.

For a moment, he’s overwhelmed. On one hand, of course he’s relieved. But more than anything, he realizes he’s let a stranger into his home; a stranger that’s used to the most lavish meals and the most expensive furniture, that for some reason agreed to lay on Jongin’s bed (not only that, but also pay him for it). That’s not the odd part. He’s not the first rich brat Jongin’s dealt with. But Sehun, Jongin let into his home, and this man had the audacity, the nerve, to go through his fridge while he was asleep and decided to fill it, as if he had some sort of responsibility over him.

And not only he doesn’t, but he also has no reason to believe he does. And the worst part (the worst part of it all) is that for all the anger he felt the second he walked through the door, a part of him still feels a little bit special.

And it’s not fair. It’s not fair that Jongin has had to fend for himself for so long, and now someone has the money to pay for his body and he suddenly feels like he owns him, like he’s some sort of child he’s decided to foster. Like he’s a sugar baby. And it’s not fair that because of someone’s hunger for power, he feels like he matters to him when he knows it’s not like that. It’s not fair that at the same time Sehun is paying for a service, Jongin is buying an illusion. This was never the deal.

“You- you had no right!” he manages to say, though he thinks if he speaks longer his voice may crack. He’s still angry. He’s angrier than he recalls ever being. It’s just that he doesn’t know it’s Sehun that he’s angry at.

“Jongin, I just-”

“You had no right to go through my things, no right to-”

He doesn’t see, not really, Sehun setting the bags down on his counter and approaching him until he can smell the remnants of his cologne. It’s sudden and Jongin could have flinched, but the hands that run down his forearms and settle at his wrists are gentle. It’s fucked up, but in a way, they feel like a landline. His sight burns Jongin where it touches him.

“I wasn’t trying to, okay? You feel asleep and I was thirsty,” he explains, with a calm in his voice that makes it seem like maybe he expected having to give explanations. “That’s all. No need to do all this.”

His last words spark something in him, and the anger ignites again in the pit of his stomach. He’s not throwing a fit: he’s rightfully protesting a breach of his privacy, of his boundaries. He refuses to cry, despite the sting in his eyes that threatens to spill. “I don’t know who you think you are,” he spits, with as much force as he can muster; “but I am not your charity work.” He doesn’t need to use force to get Sehun to let go of him; a flick of his wrists does the trick. The look Sehun gives him is battered. Jongin doesn’t back down.

He turns around. He doesn’t want to change his mind. It’s important for him to stand his ground, but now that he knows for sure that he’s safe and that Sehun, although misguided, didn’t mean any harm, he doesn’t like the way his eyes seemed to dull down.

“Of course you’re not,” he hears him say, his voice quiet. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought it would be helpful.”

It’s enraging. It’s enraging because Jongin believes him. It’s enraging because this was supposed to be easy, and now he’s tangled in this mess, with this kind stranger locking him up in his own apartment and trying to help with a struggle he can’t even begin to grasp.

It’s enraging because it is helpful. It’s enraging because he wishes he could simply accept it.

He wipes angrily at his face with the back of his hand, upset at himself for caving and upset at his eyes for betraying him. When he feels Sehun’s hand on his shoulder, light as a feather, he doesn’t push it away.

“I know my life isn’t ideal, okay?” he admits, and even just saying that out loud washes a sense of relief over him. Sometimes he forgets that when he tells himself it’s all good, he rarely ever means it. “Not all of us can be the headmaster of an empire. But I don’t work two jobs so that you can come here and act like I’m some kid you foster. I’m not.”

“I’m sorry,” Sehun says again. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

And, God, Jongin hates that he believes him. Everything would be much easier if he didn’t.

He walks to his bed, because suddenly his legs feel weak. After a moment, he feels the weight of another body sink the mattress next to him.

“I don’t enjoy it, but that’s how it is, and I have to make it work. It’s my life, whether or like it or not. I have to make it work.” Jongin could be talking to himself, and it’s odd to know that someone is listening. He doesn’t think much of his words, and his mind is still spinning when Sehun pulls him into his embrace.

Jongin lets him. He’s so tired.

After a while, Jongin finds himself with his head on Sehun’s lap, slender fingers going through strands of hair soothingly. He keeps his eyes closed, but he’s wide awake. At some point, Sehun picks him up and places him on the center of his bed, pulling the cover over him, and he hears him fumble with the bags of groceries for a moment before leaving the apartment, the keys still in their spot this time.

Jongin is so tired. But his pride is all he has.

 

Jongin met Yixing by chance, and he’s the only reason he believes in fate.

He used to live in the apartment next to Jongin’s before the couple moved in. At first they wouldn’t talk past saying hi, but soon they were sharing meals on the rooftop at dawn after their shift at Galactik. It was a bit of a shock to find out the neighbor he’d been exchanging polite greetings with in the hallway was also working there. It was even more of a shock to find out how well they got along.

Yixing is the closest thing Jongin has to a brother. He’s a little bit older than him, and had been at Galactik for a couple months when Jongin got hired, so he was the only familiar face in a sea of nescience. They grew close quickly, both similar in many senses: they bonded over dance, both their first love, and talked long hours about what they’d do once they saved up enough money. Yixing’s answer never changed: “I’m going to open a dance studio,” he said over and over, eyes fixed somewhere far away; “people will come from all over the world to dance with me.” And every time, Jongin clanked his can of Coke with his in a cheer and said, “I’ll be the first.”

They have similar work ethics, and so they find themselves busy most of the time and rarely find time to hang out outside of work anymore. But on stage, Jongin draws from Yixing a strength he misses when the other is not around.

“Are you still mad at him?” he asks him from across the room, pulling on a pair of shorts of a shiny material that Jongin hates. He’s made him try them on, but they’re itchy.

  
Jongin takes a moment to answer, rubbing lotion on his arms. He learned early on that the shinier he is, the most defined his muscles look. “Not really,” he finally replies. “It’s strange. I don’t like that he did that, but I also appreciate it in a way. Is that stupid?

“I don’t think so,” Yixing says, looking in the mirror beside him. “I mean, I can tell that you like him. No, don’t look at me like that. Remember the time that one dude offered you a similar deal and you looked at him straight in the eye and told him _I wouldn’t go with you for all the money in the world_?”

“That’s different,” Jongin answers quickly, frowning slightly at his own reflection. “He had back hair.”

Next to him, Yixing snickers. “That’s what I mean. Can I borrow your eyeliner? I can’t find my sharpener.” Jongin hands it to him with a nod. “Thanks. But I mean, I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive, but you’re more comfortable around him than you usually are. I don’t think anyone else would have made you cry like that. You’d just have kicked him out.”

Jongin looks at him, this time directly, and Yixing looks at him back. His eyes are ringed by obsidian, smoldering. Yixing is attractive, that much is obvious, but Jongin hasn’t ever had a single improper thought about him. It’d feel wrong, he thinks. He’s family.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s a good dude, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s still what it is. He calls me when he wants to get off and that’s it. Maybe he just really likes to cuddle.” He shrugs, fastening the buttons of his shirt from the bottom up. “He can probably have anyone he wants.”

“Yeah,” Yixing agrees, fixing a few strands of black hair over his eyes. “And yet he’s calling you.” He gives him a knowing smirk, and Jongin doesn’t like what he implies. He doesn’t like that he seems to be reading him all too well yet again. “Let’s roll, baby,” he teases when they hear their names being called over the loud music, patting him on the butt as he passes beside him. Jongin follows him wishing he had never said anything at all.

 

Jongin wishes he could say he hadn’t realized, but the truth is he’s just been trying not to notice.

Yixing wasn’t completely right. He hadn’t said yes because he was attracted to Sehun –if he were to only sleep with people he found attractive he would be much further from his saving goals. It was true that he had declined a similar offer in the past, but that had been because he had seen him touch Yooah as she passed by him, causing her to flinch and pick up her pace, her knuckles whitening as she held tighter onto the tray on her hands; and when he asked her about it, she told him that was common behavior for him, and she was almost used to it. Jongin had said no because he couldn’t bring himself to pretend to want to touch someone like that.

Sehun, however, had approached him with the foremost intention of somewhat scamming Junmyeon. And Jongin could get behind that.

Sehun had also never treated him with anything but respect. That was rare in itself, too used as he was to dudes manhandling him as if he was a doll, and not a human being. Sehun would ask _Is this okay?_ and _Does that feel good?_ , and sometimes he would catch him looking at his face, brushing his hair back with his fingers, looking for signs of pleasure or discomfort. And Jongin didn’t have to pretend he was having a good time, didn’t have to fake that moan or this sigh, or the little twitch in his hips. When he said _Just like that_ , he really meant it. In his hands, Jongin didn’t feel like a fantasy –he felt real as ever.

And after, when all was said and done, Sehun would sometimes still drag his mouth along the curve of Jongin’s jaw, or run his hands along his sides, his thumbs pressing down in the dips between his ribs, watching as Jongin came down from the high, listening to him breathe. And after the first time, Jongin would let himself fall asleep sometimes, just for a moment; and Sehun would always wake him up before leaving. And when he pecked his lips at the door, he was always a bit hesitant, as if he didn’t know whether he was allowed to.

Jongin never stopped him. And he always gave himself some time before picking up the wad of bills on his counter and putting them in the tin.

It was also, Jongin figured, about the way he would sometimes ask questions, his voice a little nonchalant, but curious nonetheless. The way he sometimes seemed to want to ask further, but waited until Jongin gave the information away on his own. The way he had asked his real name. And, ultimately, it was also about the way Jongin felt free to speak his mind; because around Sehun, Jongin wasn’t a pawn or a source of entertainment –he was just Jongin.

Jongin has to look away. Because when Sehun looks at him, it feels like he’s looking past anything anyone has ever seen in him. It feels, Jongin thinks, like sunshine feels on the skin. Like it trespasses every layer of him until it gets to his very core. Not because it’s trying to get anything out of him; but just because that’s what it’s meant to do. When Sehun looks at him, it feels like nobody has ever looked at Jongin before. Not like this. Not in a way that makes him feel bare, a kind of nudity he isn’t used to. It feels like it doesn’t matter whether or not he’s wearing clothes, like Sehun doesn’t care. Like every time he has undressed him, he’s been peeling layers off of his soul, and now Jongin is naked, truly naked, for the first time.

And thinking this, Jongin feels stupid. It wouldn’t be the first time he thinks too deep into something and sees blooming roses where there are no seeds.

But how can he stop himself from feeling the pull of gravity, the magnetic force that keeps him coming back, when he sees the tug at the corners of his lips? He can feel (and, by God, how he hopes he isn’t imagining it) Sehun’s eyes roaming his face, and he knows them by know, and he knows when his glance is lust-driven, and he knows, with as much certainty that he knows the sun will be coming out tomorrow as it is right now, that this is not that. He knows that kind of look. He knows the furrow of the eyebrows and the mischievous glint on the iris, he knows how to recognize the tension in his muscles. But Sehun is sitting there, on Jongin’s bed at dawn, in his tiny run-down apartment, shining in the afterglow, photographing him and looking at him like he’s never been looked at, and the whole situation is so tender that Jongin could cry.

He’s scared. He knows he can’t even being to hope for any more of this. Jongin is hopeful; for his future, for himself. But he can’t let the gentle curve of Sehun’s eyes convince him that there is anything here for him. Because –and this is where he has to be honest with himself– what could Jongin possibly give him? What kind of relationship could they hope to have? Jongin is hopeful, but he can’t hope for Sehun to be okay with the layers of fading bruises that cover his body, that keep coming, that will keep coming. That remind him –both of them, of all the pairs of hands that have explored Jongin, all wanting to mark him as property. It wouldn’t matter that none of them would succeed. It wouldn’t matter that his heart would stay home with him. Sehun knows now, and would always know, that Jongin can’t be anyone’s. Not even his.

And yet…

“What if… what if you stayed the night?”

He doesn’t make an effort to stop the words from spilling out of him. He can’t give him anything, that much is true. But if he’s learned anything, it’s that he must take any opportunity that arises. He might say no. He might stand up and leave, and then not come back. That would be okay. Jongin realizes he has nothing to lose.

  
Still, he averts his eyes for a moment. He doesn’t want to see the rejection in them. But upon meeting them, he’s confronted with the same warm look that led him to ask the question in the first place, and he realizes it doesn’t surprise him.

Maybe he feels the pull, too. Maybe there’s a seed there, somewhere.

“It’s not much,” he says on impulse. He remembers that this man is used to Italian silk and French champagne, and not bleach-stained bedsheets and leftovers for breakfast. “But-”

“It’s okay,” Sehun cuts him. “I don’t mind. I will. If you want me to.”

Jongin can’t find his voice to answer. When he finds it, he keeps quiet, because he can’t trust himself not to slip. _I just want you_ , he thinks, and he’s glad Sehun lies down and cradles him so that he can rest his head on his chest, because he feels his cheeks grow warm with the words he didn’t pronounce, he can’t pronounce.

But he can’t distinguish, not really, because he feels warm all over. He doesn’t think he can blame the blanket. For a moment, he just allows himself to relax into it, his legs tangling with Sehun’s in what feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“I’ve never been… held. Not like this,” he says, almost like a thought out loud. Almost like a whisper. Like a secret.

Sehun’s fingers rest on his scalp for a second. Jongin can only imagine him looking at the top of his head, as if he could somehow look into his eyes like this, in this position. “Never?” he asks, his voice tinted with the curiosity Jongin has learned to appreciate. “You’ve never been… with someone? Never had a boyfriend? Or girlfriend?”

“There was this guy,” Jongin says. He doesn’t think it counts, but he’s the closest thing to a boyfriend Jongin has ever had. “We kissed a lot, but it didn’t feel like love,” is what Jongin says.

It didn’t feel like this, is what Jongin wants to say. Jongin doesn’t know if he’s in love. He’s never been in love before, so he doesn’t think he could recognize it. But what he means is, the way that boy had looked at him wasn’t much different from the looks he got at the club. He had said I love you. He just didn’t know if he had meant it.

Up until now, he didn’t know he could be looked at any other way.

After a moment, Sehun speaks again. “How old are you?” he asks, and Jongin’s soul falls to his feet, because he doesn’t think he can lie his way around this time.

  
Maybe he should have considered this. Maybe he should have come clean earlier on; but he didn’t think it would matter. It never has. And when it has, it’s been safer to lie. He learned that after the first time, and when he remembered, his jaw ached all over again.

Maybe this is how it will go down. Maybe Sehun, too, will flip from perfect gentleman to careless, enraged stranger. But still, Jongin can’t bring himself to lie.

“Eighteen,” he admits, his voice so quiet he can barely hear himself. Sehun’s hand isn’t moving, it isn’t caressing his hair anymore. Maybe this is when it will grip it with more force than it has in any of their encounters, maybe this is when his free hand will turn into a fist. Jongin’s eyes are closed, waiting. Expecting it is always the worst part.

But they don’t. Sehun starts, “You aren’t even the legal age to-,” and Jongin stops him, because he can’t bear to hear it.

“I know,” he says. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m turning nineteen in a month and a half.”

Jongin doesn’t think, doesn’t allow himself any jumpcuts, and he just waits, with his eyes fixated on the window and his mind running a hundred miles per hour, his heart racing in his chest. He thinks maybe Sehun can feel it, pressed against him as he is. It’s surprising to find out he doesn’t mind. Maybe it doesn’t even matter. Maybe he’ll never see him again.

But then, in the most miraculous, unexpected of ways, Sehun’s fingers run through strands of chestnut hair, and the arm around his waist pulls him closer towards him. As if he was trying to protect him (of what, Jongin isn’t sure). As if he didn’t hate him.

“What about school?” he asks then. As if his education was the main problem at hands.

“I did online schooling and finished early. I’m saving up for college…”

None of them say anything else. Jongin wants to, he wants to apologize, but what would he say? He’s deceived him, and nothing he can say will change that. All he can do is close his eyes and lean into him, and hope, just hope, that everything will be alright just this once.

 

Jongin doesn’t recall falling asleep, and when he opens his eyes, it takes him a moment to remember the reason why he’s engulfed in oppressing heat. Sehun’s body wraps around him with amusing force considering he still sleeps soundly, mouth parted slightly.

It’s a vision Jongin couldn’t have expected to witness. Sehun in his wake looks exquisite, in a way Jongin can only describe as regal. Jongin knows he has walls of his own, and he hadn’t expected to ever see him with his guards down.

Yet here he is. Sprawled on Jongin’s old mattress, looking like he hasn’t had a care in the world in the past ten years, his figure cut against the background of Jongin’s wall’s peeling paint. Looking like a golden broche in a dumpster. Jongin has nothing to give him.

And yet…

When he pries his arms away from him, so that he can sit up, Sehun’s brow furrows and his hand, fumbling, finds Jongin’s under the blanket. Their fingers lace together and Jongin uncovers them, looking at the way they fit, his own tan skin against Sehun’s fair one. And then he untangles them and gets up, because if he doesn’t he might snuggle up to him and refuse to get out of bed until he’s forced to.

He taps him on the shoulder once, twice. “Sehun,” he calls, and he thinks he might have heard him, because he rolls over and wraps his arms around the pillow, face buried in it securely. Jongin shakes his head, just once, and decides to let him sleep.

The shower clears his mind. When Sehun isn’t right in front of him, Jongin can think straight, he can remind himself that whatever they have going on doesn’t mean anything, no matter how safe Jongin feels around him. No matter how Sehun seems to try to make him feel safe on purpose.

He comes out to Sehun pulling on his underwear, and the sight is somewhat amusing- he looks out of place. His stance is haughty and dignified, but his hair sticks in odd directions and his designer boxers clash with the rest of the apartment. He feels himself grin.

“You didn’t wake me up,” he complains, a sprouting in his expression. Jongin had never seen him after waking up, and now Jongin can believe he’s only twenty-two, and not the twenty-five he looks in a suit.

“I tried,” says Jongin. He didn’t really, but he doesn’t need to know that. “You sleep like the dead.”

He doesn’t look at him as he gets dressed, busy trying to find clean jeans and a T-shirt, so he doesn’t see him watch him while he’s buttoning up a wrinkled dress shirt. “You’re free today, aren’t you?” he asks all of a sudden, and Jongin turns around to look at him once properly clothed.

“Yeah,” he answers, although the question puzzles him.

“Let’s go grab breakfast,” Sehun says then, and something in Jongin stirs a little.

He looks at the clock, as to gain time while his mind struggles to process the proposition. “It’s one-twenty p.m.,” he says, although it wouldn’t be the first time he has breakfast past noon.

“Okay, then,” Sehun says, without missing a beat; “let’s go grab lunch. Brunch, if you will.”

“Brunch,” says Jongin, feeling the corners of his lips lift a little. “Such a rich kid thing. Here in the suburbs we have last night’s leftovers for late breakfast. Alright, yeah, let’s go eat,” agrees Jongin, although whatever has awaken in him is clawing at the insides of his stomach. He can’t tell whether or not it’s unpleasant.

  
Jongin goes to grab his winter coat, and he sees, out of the corner of his eye, Sehun reaching into his pocket and taking out his wallet. He doesn’t think about it; he strides towards him and stops him, hoping Sehun can’t feel his fingers shaking as he wraps them around his wrist. “Don’t,” Jongin says. His voice is steady, but it doesn’t match the pit-a-pat of his heart in his chest. “Not this time.”

Sehun looks at him, straight in the eye, and only then does Jongin realize how close they’re standing. “You need it,” he says, and while maybe some other time Jongin would have reacted negatively, he knows by now that when Sehun says that, he doesn’t mean to make him feel smaller or less worthy –he’s just stating what he knows.

“It’s not… like that,” Jongin says either way, shaking his head. Because while it’s true, and it’s been his main source of income in the past weeks, as much as Jongin can try to lie to himself, it doesn’t feel right anymore. And if Sehun is ever going to look at him like that again, Jongin would rather it not be contractual. “Clients don’t stay over…”

And right when Sehun has been staring at him for way too long, and right when he thinks he’s going to leave the apartment muttering _This was a mistake_ and _I should have never led you on_ , his eyes soften and he gives a small nod, tucking the wallet back in his pocket.

Jongin doesn’t look at him while he pulls on his coat. It dawns over him, all of a sudden, what he has just done, and he doesn’t know what to think of it. He doesn’t know what Sehun thinks of it.

Jongin is hopeful, but he remembers, as he wraps a scarf around his neck, he has nothing to give him.

 

Conversation is easy. It’s not that it had ever been particularly difficult, but now that Jongin is letting himself speak freely, now that he doesn’t feel obligated to keep up an image, it comes as natural as breathing. Sehun has a kind of laugh that brightens him up, and Jongin finds himself wondering how he had ever found him intimidating.

He notices him staring every once on a while, but his hands remain balled up in fists inside his pockets, the only trace of his inner turmoil. But Sehun’s eyes are fiery, and Jongin feels a little like he might melt under them.

“Is anything…?” he begins to ask, but the question gets cut when Sehun shakes his head intently.

“Don’t move,” he asks instead, and Jongin almost laughs, because he’s been frozen in his place for what feels like years.

Jongin’s eyes close just as Sehun’s lips collide with his; and the sensation isn’t new, but the context most definitely is. The hands that come to rest on his cheeks are gentle, tender even, and Jongin’s fingers grip at the front of Sehun’s trench coat, and Jongin has been kissed before, but never like this. Never by someone that made him feel fragile as a snowflake; never in a way that said _this is perfect_ instead of _I want more_.

He doesn’t know how long it lasts. He doesn’t attempt to keep track. He focuses on the thumb that rubs circles onto the side of his neck, on the breath that condenses into little clouds between them, and the rose that seems to be blooming, in the middle of the winter, in the pit of his stomach.

 

Jongin had never had an issue being Kai before.

The topic came up in conversation with Yixing often; he felt the same way about being Lay. In general terms, Kai seemed to come alive without much prompting on Jongin’s part when the lights dimmed down and he felt the weight of dozens of pairs of eyes on him.

Don’t get him wrong- he liked that part. He doesn’t think he could have ever worked in the scene if there wasn’t some aspect of it that he could redeem. It made Jongin feel powerful; in control, even. For ten minutes at a time, he had the attention of an entire room to himself, and his body seemed to move in sync with a rhythm he wasn’t always aware of on a conscious level. Being Kai felt, sometimes, like letting go.

It wasn’t even the sex that bothered him. Jongin wasn’t new to intimacy before he started working at Galactik, and the experience didn’t come as much as a shock as it did a sort of wave of empowerment. He liked the attention, plain and simple. He liked the way the smallest twist of his hips could elicit noises that reverberated in the room, and the look in his eyes when he caught it in the mirror, and the way he left the building feeling like he was worth the money in his pocket. He’d done that. He’d earned it.

There was, in Jongin’s eyes, no reason to look down on sex work. He was good at sex, and he used what he was good at to get what he wanted. There was no shame in that.

There were downsides, some of which Jongin hadn’t considered at first. For example, that sometimes he would be tired or not in the mood, and it wouldn’t matter. Or that some people would be rougher than he was comfortable with, and by the time he noticed it’d be too late to back down. Or that, sometimes, he would feel the weight of the world around him that insists that once you use your body a certain way, you’re tainted and therefore unworthy of respect. Or that he would be unavailable to have any sort of committed, monogamous relationship.

And now, Kai finds himself slipping into Jongin, trying to find familiar eyes in the face of a stranger, his voice caught in his throat in the effort not to choke out his name.

It’s not that he no longer enjoys sex. It’s just that he now knows a different kind of intimacy that’s much more fulfilling; one that has him thinking that these shoulders are too narrow and this hair is too light, and these hands don’t feel right in his, and the way he’s being held right now is a little bit oppressive, not all that pleasant. And he bites his lip until he thinks he’s going to draw blood, and when he leaves Galactik and Jongin is alone in the room, he scrambles to the bedside table to grab his phone and scrolls through notifications until he finds the one he’s looking for. And for the first time, he feels dirty.

 

“You know, right?” he asks into his mug, staring at its contents as if the hot chocolate was to somehow give him an answer. “You know that I can’t be… exclusive?”

He hates saying it, because it gives the words a sense of reality, of absoluteness. Of inescapability. But Sehun mutters, “Yeah, I know. Your job,” and he sounds a little tired, resigned even, but not mad or particularly upset. Jongin wonders if that means he doesn’t really care. Maybe, he thinks, he sees it as a casual thing anyway. So he nods, unsure if there’s anything he can say that would make things better. He figures there isn’t.

Jongin has admitted by now that he has caught feelings. Like the flu. There’s no other reason why he would be here right now, sitting on a white rug next to Sehun’s Christmas tree, next to the fireplace, with his dog curled up against him. They probably look, he thinks, like a postcard, Sehun sitting across from him holding a mug of his own. He chose coffee, and if Jongin were to kiss him he could probably taste it in his tongue. He doesn’t like coffee, but he still wants to kiss him.

They hang out often, just like this. Sometimes they kiss for hours. Frequently, their clothes stay on. It was strange at the beginning, for Jongin, but they’ve been getting better at it. Sometimes, Jongin is too tired to do anything but let Sehun pet his hair and leave a trail of kisses on and around his mouth. Sehun never demands anything else.

“You know,” starts Sehun when Jongin looks up at him from his mug. His onyx hair looks inexplicably warm under the fairy lights. “I showed your photos to my head photographer…”

“No one was supposed to see those,” says Jongin reflexively. He knows which ones he means; while he was taking them, he had the baffling urge to tear up.

Sehun shakes his head. “Nobody else did,” he assures. “He’s a professional. He says… he says he could have you be on every magazine cover within three months…”

  
Jongin had never particularly considered modelling, although people had, here and there, mentioned how they thought he could make it. Jongin was photogenic. However, he knew very little about the industry. To be more exact, he knows only what Sehun has told him. Sehun, who inherited the agency from his father when he retired, having been involved in its management since the moment he became of age. He knows that models have portfolios, which they send to companies hoping for them to take the leap and represent them. That most of them have a specific profile they look for, and that Sehun’s wants models that look like nobody else. Unik Model Management. That was what his father had named it. He knows that Sehun himself could have been a model, if he had wanted to; but he had chosen to remain behind the camera.

“That seems like a lot,” he says finally. He knows that the work is arduous. But he also knows that it’s well paid.

“If you ever want to move on…” Sehun says quietly. The words seem to float between them.

Jongin knows –or at least, he thinks he knows– what this would mean for them, aside from what it would mean for Jongin. And, he thinks, maybe Sehun cares.

  
He realizes with vivid clarity that, somehow, for some reason, Sehun has accepted him with everything that he is and everything that he carries on his back. He understands that he’s giving him a choice, and that that is, from where he is, the best gift he can give him.

“You don’t need to answer now,” he says. “Just promise you’ll think about it…”

Not once has Sehun said or done anything that’s made Jongin feel inferior, and Jongin hasn’t had, still doesn’t have, anything to give him.

But if he could break away from this circle…

And so he says “Okay,” and watches Sehun’s eyes light up.

 

Jongin turns off his phone, because he knows by now that behind every call he’s getting, there’s the enraged voice of Junmyeon, demanding he come to the club immediately for his shift. Jongin laughs into the line the last time they speak. “Or what?” he retorts. His next call goes to voicemail.

Modeling, Jongin finds, is not very different from what he’s used to doing for a living; in the studio, instead, it’s his sole presence that draws words of praise. It’s fun, and he gets to be Kai and he gets to be Jongin, and he always feels like himself.

Sehun beams when he looks at him, and it hits Jongin with the same intensity every time. He still doesn’t know if he’s in love (how could he know?); but he can feel the way his heart ricochets in his chest when he catches his eyes across the table, the way that, when his eyes close, he can feel him beside him. He knows the glimmer in his eyes when he calls his name, and for now that, Jongin thinks, is enough.

He doesn’t know if he’s in love, but they have time. And he knows that, by the moment he says the words, he’ll mean them.


End file.
